Two-tailed Pashas at the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens
This summer the Botanic Gardens have installed a number of butterfly feeding tables, which have been a great success.
The tables are supplied with succulent, mature, cut fruit, and butterflies love to drink the juices as the fruits begin to ferment. In particular, Two-tailed pashas Charaxes jasius, are the most prolific of species, with many coming to feed in the mornings and early afternoons. They are sometimes joined by Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria, butterflies and on occasions the Monarch butterfly. Also wasps and beetles are attracted to the table. Its been a great success with the public and tourists alike, who are seen taking photos of the aggregation of butterflies at the table. Behind we can see orange flowers of the Milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, the foodplant of the Monarch butterfly. You may be lucky to see the Monarch caterpillars, in their yellow and black colouration, and their striking horns, feeding on the leaves of this plant. Also behind this table are the blue flowers of the Heliotrope, a sweet scented favourite of other species of butterflies, such as the Small White Pieris rapae, the Andalusian Blue, Polyommatus celina, and the Geranium Bronze butterfly Cacyreus marshalli.
Please come to the gardens to enjoy the profusion of butterfly species and take some nice photographs.
